Riley murder trial begins in Brockton court

Wednesday

Jan 20, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 20, 2010 at 7:20 PM

Three years after the parents of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley were charged with her overdose murder, the trial of Rebecca’s mother, Carolyn, got under way on Tuesday in Plymouth Superior Court in Brockton. After opening statements from the prosecutor and defense attorneys, the jury heard from the first of scores of potential witnesses.

Staff reports

Three years after the parents of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley were charged with her overdose murder, the trial of Rebecca’s mother, Carolyn, got under way on Tuesday in Plymouth Superior Court in Brockton. After opening statements from the prosecutor and defense attorneys, the jury heard from the first of scores of potential witnesses.

Prosecutor Frank Middleton, opening arguments

“It was Carolyn who overdosed her daughter with clonidine. It was Carolyn who refused day after day to get treatment for her. She let her die. She began an evil scheme that ended in murder.

“The scheme begins when Rebecca is 2 years old. Carolyn’s aunt got a call from her niece (Carolyn), who said everyone in the family was on SSI (disability payments) except Rebecca...

“It was about money ... so she made up symptoms of mental illness. She lies to Dr. (Kayoko) Kifuji to get what she wants... Rebecca wasn’t going to get better until she (Carolyn) got her money ... and Social Security denied her claim. She was going to get $633 a month for Rebecca, and that $633 cost Rebecca her life.

“She called them ‘the happy pills.’ They were the pills Carolyn was always mysteriously running out of.

“Between August 2004 and January 2005, Carolyn tells Dr. Kifuji that she has upped Rebecca’s dosage (of clonidine) on her own from a quarter of a tablet to 2 and even 3½ tablets a day. In October 2005 she ups it again ... and Dr. Kifuji says, ‘No more. That could kill her.’ ... And she says she will report her to DSS.

“You will hear witnesses who were in the (Riley) house who will say that during the last two weeks of her life (that) on Dec. 9 (2006), Rebecca was sick, and Michael Riley was hitting Rebecca. They begged Carolyn to take her to the doctor. Carolyn said she would make an appointment. ...Instead, she and Michael went to the Social Security office because they hadn’t gotten the money.

“By Dec. 12, Rebecca was in a stupor. ...By 1 a.m. on Dec. 13, she was gasping for air, calling, ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ ... and Carolyn took Rebecca to her room, shut the door, gave her an overdose and let her die.”

“When the Hull Fire Department arrived, what they saw was a woman huddled over the body of a young child. She was hysterical. It took some time for them to separate them.

“Carolyn Riley was a loving and caring parent. Carolyn took care of her children. ...They called Rebecca ‘Sunshine’ ... but she needed constant attention from the time she was born.

“Carolyn went to Dr. Kifuji because Rebecca had some behaviors... All the medications she gave to Rebecca were prescribed by Dr. Kifuji. They were not nefarious. They are not unusual, shocking medications. Rebecca saw her primary doctors, too. They were very aware of what her medications were.”

“The Weymouth schools evaluated her and determined that Rebecca had language and fine-motor-skill problems. There is nothing in the school records to support the prosecution’s statement that she was dazed and lethargic.

“When she went back to the Elden Johnson Early Childhood Center in the fall of 2006, the school nurse’s call to Dr. Kifuji was the only complaint she had (about Rebecca’s drug dosage).

“The prosecution says that Mr. (James) McGonnell (Carolyn Riley’s half-brother) pleaded with the Rileys to take her to the doctor. But he and Ms. (Kelly) Williams (McGonnell’s girlfriend) were alone with Rebecca (on Dec. 12) while Carolyn and Michael went to Wal-Mart to get some medication, and they didn’t call 911 or take her to the hospital.

“Carolyn Riley did everything she could to treat her daughter. The medical examiner is completely wrong about the cause of death. Rebecca had a fast type of pneumonia. This was a sad, unfair event.”

“I saw Rebecca with her class, and she looked very, very tired – lethargic and weak, just standing there. ...I wanted to speak to her mother, to tell her the concerns we had.”

“At our first meeting, (Carolyn) told me Rebecca was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 24 months. She said Rebecca was aggressive toward her siblings – hitting and kicking, really out of control at home. And she said Rebecca didn’t sleep at night, that she would roam around the house. ...But I told her we hadn’t seen any aggressive or violent behavior at school.

“(Carolyn) told me Rebecca got .35 milligrams of clonidine a day, .05 milligrams in the morning and afternoon and .2 milligrams at night. I had never seen dosages like that (for public school children). She said Rebecca had a high tolerance for medications like that.

“I did tell Dr. Kifuji that when Rebecca was a little more awake (after the clonidine wore off), she played nicely with the other children. She was more animated. She was a very sweet little girl.”

“When Rebecca enrolled (in January 2006), the mother reported she was taking medications for aggressive behavior, so we assigned an extra paraprofessional to her class. There were nine in the class.

“She was absent 20 percent of the time in the spring, but she only missed three days in the fall. She was in a class of 14 with no extra paraprofessional.

“In September (2006), the van driver called and said Rebecca was shaking. When the van got to the school and Rebecca got off, she started to collapse, so I took her in my arms and carried her inside.

“On Nov. 7, the mother came to the school and said she was angry because the nurse spoke to their doctor (Kifuji) to change Rebecca’s dosage. She said the school didn’t have a right to change her medications ... and I said she had signed a release for the nurse to speak to Dr. Kifuji.”